How does this person have standing to claim copyright? Did he make the recordings? Just because you're the person in the video does not make you the copyright holder.

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derbOac 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

My feeling is when someone becomes a public official, the rules change (or should change) due to public accountability and power. If you put something out in the public that's relevant to your position, I think the fair use of that material increases dramatically in scope.

Basically even if the FCC official made the recordings, I think at some point copyright on certain materials should become moot because fair use becomes dramatically greater in scope. I know not everyone would agree with that but it's what I feel should be the case.

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bsimpson 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

For those who don't know the specifics of intellectual property law:

Copyright is unwavering. The law says that the author/owner gets exclusive use of that content for a really fucking long time (something like life + a century, thank you Disney lobbyists). Full stop.

The courts recognize that that lack of nuance is unreasonable. Therefore, they have ruled that copyright law doesn't apply if the use is "fair," hence the phrase "fair use." There's no hard-and-fast way to know if something is fair use. You're basically betting that if you ever get sued, the court will be on your side. There are axioms that the court has given (for instance, if you are making money from your use, it's less likely to be fair) that help you guess if the ruling leans in your favor.

The reason for these exemptions is that it's in the public's interest for certain kinds of expression to transcend copyright, such as news and satire. (This is also where the folks belief that you can't get in trouble if it's a parody come from.)

"Clearance and Copyright," and "Free Culture" are both great books to learn more about this. The author of the latter, Larry Lessig, is the guy who fought Disney's copyright lobby in court. His experience inspired that book, and also inspired him to found the Creative Commons.

All of that is to say that there are carve outs to copyright where the public interest overrides the private content monopoly, and a public official speaking in an unflattering way certainly qualifies.

[update] apparently those axioms were actually codified into law in 1976, but they are still merely defensive - nudges for how the court might rule, not protections in their own right.

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Animats 2 days ago | parent [-]

A work performed by a Government employee in connection with their job is not copyrightable in the US. (The UK has "Crown copyright", but the US has nothing similar.) Most of these people were Government employees speaking on Government business.

Where does YouTube get off taking them down? That's way out of line for Google.

Meanwhile, move them over to PeerTube or something.

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qingcharles 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

* Federal employees

(I've been blocked on FOIAs in Illinois by state and locals claiming wild copyright claims)

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NewJazz 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The work was recorded prior to him becoming a government employee.

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bigbadfeline 2 days ago | parent [-]

But that work is directly related and highly relevant to his work as a government employee now. If you were right, any politician could silence anyone from speaking about his former transgressions, affairs or whatever.

In fact, a state Rep in California (R) tried that after his bragging was caught by an open mic, he graphically bragged to a colleague about having sex with a lobbyist and then claimed copyright on that "work" and his own name.

That went nowhere, of course.

	▲	TheNewsIsHere 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Although what I’m about to say would be taken to a logical extreme by some, that is just fallacy — It is of course immaterial that someone later becomes a government employee. If we were to pass a law along these lines, then any expert who later becomes a government employee would not be entitled to the protection of prior intellectual property. Barack Obama penned many items prior to the commencement of his government employment. His interest in those pieces where he discussed topics relevant to his interests or expertise in constitutional law is not abridged because he entered public service. In this case with Prasad, there is other nuance, but none of it material to that specific point. A much more fruitful focus would be on the doctrine of fair use and the examination of the credentials and claims of those who do enter public service.

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gruez 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>My feeling is when someone becomes a public official, the rules change (or should change) due to public accountability and power. If you put something out in the public that's relevant to your position, I think the fair use of that material increases dramatically in scope.

That's theoretically what "fair use" is supposed to cover.

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disposition2 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just want to point out this is someone (in leadership) from the FDA, not the FCC.

> Prasad, a former hematologist-oncologist at the University of California San Francisco, is now *head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which makes him the chief vaccine regulator in the US.*

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NewJazz 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's definitely a better fair use case than "archiving" and monetizing Kendrick's latest album. Courts would be more cautious denying fair use when policy is involved.

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nobodyandproud 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So Google is as much at fault here as Prasad.

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timr 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plenary Session was his podcast. He made the recordings. In fact, 99% of the content was him, alone, talking to the camera.

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NewJazz 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes he owns the copyright. But there may be a valid fair use claim.

Some past judicial criteria:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

the nature of the copyrighted work;

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

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tempodox 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’d assume that the “copyright infringement” is just Google’s pretext for removing the channel. They can hardly cite “obedient submission to the Trump gang” as the reason.

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olalonde 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If the speech is original enough to be copyrighted, the speaker owns the rights to the content itself. The recording is a separate copyright, but you can't just distribute it without the author's permission for the same reason you can't record a movie in a theater and distribute it (aside from "fair use" exceptions).

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ceejayoz 3 days ago | parent [-]

Criticism and news reporting are very clear exceptions to this case, or politicians would sue every time their speech was quoted negatively.

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timr 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Criticism and news reporting are very clear exceptions to this case, or politicians would sue every time their speech was quoted negatively.

That's why it would be good to have some specifics, as opposed to...the parade of generalities and thinly veiled character attacks in this article.

Yes, you're allowed, with specific rules, to make samples for criticism, parody, etc. You're not allowed to just make a video reel of long clips for "archiving". So it really matters a lot what was actually done here, and that is what we don't know.

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jrflowers 2 days ago | parent [-]

>You're not allowed to just make a video reel of long clips for "archiving"

Seems like you are though. What is the legal limit for a video that’s critical of a public figure based on that person’s statements about the thing that they are in charge of? If they talk real slow or use run-on sentences am I legally obligated to make sound bites to approximate my interpretation of their opinion? Like if a public figure says something but takes a while to say it, I’m not allowed to criticize it in full because it is long?

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timr 2 days ago | parent [-]

Google "fair use rule". It's not a simple answer, but no, you're not just allowed to cut together clips of someone else's work.

Regardless, what YouTube chooses to enforce and what is legally "fair use" are two different things.

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jrflowers 2 days ago | parent [-]

Fair use depends on context and purpose, though.

>“It’s really important to remember [Prasad’s] past words in order to gauge his current and future credibility, and that was the mission of my YouTube channel, to record what these doctors [Prasad and others] said,”

The condition to believe that the owner of the YouTube channel was in violation of fair use would be to believe that he was lying with the above statement, which there doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe. It’s literally criticism, of a public figure no less.

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timr 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, yes...and the "mission" of my uploading all 374 seasons of South Park to YouTube in 5 minute clips was to preserve history -- to record what Cartman said for posterity.

It's one of the oldest dodges of copyright law there is. You learn about this in high school journalism class (do they even teach that anymore?)

	▲	jrflowers 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		You sound pretty confident that this now-deleted YouTube channel was not using content in a way that would qualify as fair use. Can you clarify why from what you watched? I can only go off the description of the content from the article and what the person that made the videos said, so I would appreciate more detail from somebody that’s sure that this was the same thing as uploading every episode of South Park. I personally run into trouble with the “this is the same thing as uploading every episode of South Park” angle with all the “a public figure in charge of pubic health using possibly spurious claims of copyright infringement in scrubbing his public statements about his positions on public health” and the “dozens of views” stuff, but again I have not watched these videos and you have so Edit: also wait you learned about South Park YouTube rips in high school journalism class? And your takeaway was that archiving things is inherently to be distrusted? In journalism class? Like your journalism teacher told you that collecting information from primary sources and disseminating it in an organized way for the purpose of public good was the same thing as pirating a TV show for clout or profit? That is what they taught you in your school? I am not in high school but I would guess that no they do not teach that, like at all, ever. Like that is not a thing any journalism teacher should have ever taught. That is so antithetical to the concept of journalism that I can’t imagine what a “the opposite of journalism” class would be but it sounds dumb as hell. A class called “Journalism” that teaches you to only say what your subject wants you to say sounds like a machine to intentionally manufacture a stupid human being

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olalonde 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Indeed, fair use might apply, but it doesn't change who owns the copyright. And in practice, YouTube rarely cares about fair use as it's simpler and safer for them to ignore it.